Pakistani Chief Wants U.S. Out of Region

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, February 5, 2003

The chief minister in charge of Pakistan's border regions insisted Thursday there are no al-Qaida or Taliban terrorists in the area and the U.S.-led coalition must wind down its war on terrorism.

"We don't have any al-Qaida or Taliban here," Akram Durrani, who heads a conservative Islamic coalition that won power in the North West Frontier Province, said in a rare interview with a foreign journalist. "Absolutely there is nothing here."

The U.S. military disagrees.

In December, 22-year-old Army Sgt. Steven Checo died in a gunfight in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province. Barely a week later, a Pakistani security man fired at U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan after they told him to leave the area, prompting the Americans to call in B-52 bombers.

A small number of U.S. special forces are working with Pakistani troops in the tribal regions on the border with Afghanistan, and FBI agents have been on raids with Pakistani forces in the frontier province.

Durrani wants the Americans to go.

"We don't want any foreigners here," he said.

In the hour-long interview with The Associated Press, Durrani warned that a war in Iraq would set off protests not only in his deeply conservative province, but throughout Pakistan.

"It's time for the United States to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan," Durrani said from the chief minister's palatial brick residence in Peshawar. The provincial capital is at the foot of the famed Khyber Pass, 120 miles northwest of the federal capital of Islamabad.

Durrani's ultraconservative religious alliance has sympathies with the deposed Taliban and its strict brand of Islam.

Already, many movie posters have been torn down, music banned on public transportation, and a singer pulled from a wedding and beaten by police. Durrani even grew a beard after being chosen chief minister, in keeping with ultraconservative beliefs that Muslim men should imitate Islam's prophet Muhammad in appearance as well as deeds.

Durrani's six-party coalition is composed of parties opposed to the war on terror in Afghanistan. Durrani's Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam was among the most vocal opponents. Supporters attending political rallies often waved posters of Osama bin Laden.

These days, while the Pakistani military patrols the border region and small numbers of U.S. special forces are there, checkposts have been reduced and fewer men are manning them.

Former Taliban interviewed by AP say they travel more freely across the border. Western intelligence says there has been an increase in activity at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Durrani says his government does not support terrorism, but disagreed that the Taliban are terrorists. Some within the religious coalition say the al-Qaida network is an American creation.

"In fact we believe that America wanted to defame Islamic movements by saying Muslims are involved in terrorism, and they used Sept. 11 as an excuse to attack Afghanistan and to achieve this goal," said Ameer-ul Azeem, a spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami, a partner in the ruling coalition.

"There are no al-Qaida men in Afghanistan, there is no al-Qaida in Pakistan, it's all the propaganda of America that al-Qaida people are operating from Afghanistan or Pakistan."

Human rights activists say religious extremism is on the rise in the region.

Asfandyar Khattak, chairman of Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission, said attacks against moderates in the frontier have increased, backed by the police.

"The signs of extremism are increasing," said Khattak, noting that a singer, Gulzar Alam, was pulled from a wedding several weeks ago, taken to a police station and beaten.

A Pashtu writer, Fazal Wahab, was shot and killed by suspected militants in northwest Pakistan. His crime was to write a book about the "politics of mullahs" and how they used the Islamic religion to gain power, Khattak said.

Amnesty International condemned the killing, saying it "follows a series of measures by local authorities in the North West Frontier Province to bring the suspected perpetrators to justice."